Friday, December 6, 2013

Many incomplete views of the kid on the autism spectrum: a poem

You may have heard the story of the blind men who felt different parts of an elephant and proclaimed they knew for sure that this creature was a wall, a spear, a rope, a snake, a fan, or a tree.

Sometimes we can make this kind of mistake when viewing a person.

Below is the original poem, and something I wrote as a reminder that no matter how certain we are of our understanding, we may not have the full picture.

This poem was published in Autism Spectrum Quarterly in 2007. My workshop participants in Cleveland this week participated in reading it (playing the role of the narrow minded clinicians, but my Wayne County workshop participants today missed this poem (though they saw more videos), and yet were very graciously appreciative of the day we spent together... so my thanks back to you is to give you a copy of this poem.

About Me

Like many people, I want to understand, and fully engage in, the human and natural world. My blogs represent different forms of engagement: providing psychotherapy, teaching college students how to think and research well, networking, editing textbooks, training therapists, studying, and walking the family dog. In all of my roles, I prefer a collaborative approach to understanding, so I hope to get feedback, ideas, questions here as I have in other settings. Thanks for reading!